CC recently featured a review of the Austin Maxi. To recap, the Maxi was a cut down version of the BMC Austin and Morris 1800 (the Landcrab) with a new but inadequate OHC 4 cylinder engine and a hatchback, which it gained by accident. It was the last Issigonis design BMC/BLMC offered, and it very nearly never made it at all. It was the car that confirmed that Alec Issigonis needed someone to keep him on the straight and narrow, and that BMC didn’t have that person.

The main selling point for the Maxi throughout its career was the space it offered, and the flexibility within it through the then novel 5 door hatch back layout, low rear loading lip, folding seats that went every which way and the space benefits of the transverse engine, with the gearbox in the sump layout Issigonis was cheer leader for. Compared with a Cortina, it was dance hall on wheels.

So, actually it was quite a large car, really? Here’s one alongside a 2001 Vauxhall Astra and a 2011 Vauxhall Meriva. The Astra is GM Europe’s Golf and Focus competitor; the Meriva is a compact MPV.

The Maxi was 159 in long, 64 in wide and 55 in high, on a wheelbase of 105 in. The Astra was 165 in, 67 in and 56 in, on a wheelbase of 103in. In an old English expression, that’s close enough for Government work, except for the length. Weight-wise it isn’t – it weighs more than 10% more than the Maxi’s 2100lb.

The Meriva is actually an interesting vehicle – at least for a compact MPV – as it is part Corsa, part Astra, with suicide doors. It’s 5 seats only, with length/width/height of 169/71/64 on a wheelbase of 104 in.

This last picture show the Maxi alongside a Daihatsu Terios – personally, I feel the less said the better.

The Astra and Meriva owners are well entitled to ask where the extra external bulk has given them extra imternal space. If you want to carry 5 people within a comfortable (comfort and space) environment you’d almost certainly pick the Maxi, until you considered factors such as safety, fuel economy, the gearchange, the likehood of getting to your destination and the reaction of your peers.

But if your peers read CC, I guess the Maxi will do just fine, thanks. I certainly know which I’d prefer to take a lift home in.

32 Comments

We have all encountered “that guy”. A long time employee with a great track record and many laurels, now resting on them while being indulged by grateful management just prior to calling it good. Many times I caught myself being him, much to my horror, and took early retirement the first time it was offered. I am not comparing my puissant career with Sir Alec’s, just the circumstances. Had I known that Chrysler was going BK, I would have made them suffer. The car has none of the efficiency of the original Mini. It just looks like a backyard coach builder’s idea of a Mini Limo.

In Issogonis’ case, I don’t think it was a case of resting on laurels, but rather that Sir Alec had very specific ideas about how things should be designed and had no use and little patience for stylists, product planners, or marketing executives. The kind of focus group development and cost engineering in which, say, Ford put so much stock, was anathema to Sir Alec, who disdained the idea of the public dictating what kind of cars companies should build or the notion of accountants or stylists sullying the purity of the engineer’s vision. That he was very clever is undeniable, but he was not, to use the popular ’50s Americanism, an organization man.

I stumbled upon this Wolseley Six stretch the other day. I was surprised it had a transverse I6.

The Maxi was an interesting snapshot of how some companies developed cars. I understand they were trying to amortize sunk costs from prior mistakes. I get it that they may have thought they had a better idea for a small sedan, and perhaps the dominance of the Golf suggests that their idea wasn’t ridiculous, even if copying the Primula’s body style was a styling solution rather than an engineering or marketing one. I can’t conceive of how they could plan on this awkward and unconventional yet familiar car dominating the market. I also don’t understand how they couldn’t improve on their decade old engines materially. I think the word hapless sees far more utilization in Britain than in the US.

Wow, that is an unfortunate “restoration”. You’d think if you had something this unique, you’d choose something other than a current-day London cab as the model for your interior. Perhaps the results suggested the equally dubious choice of deep tint for the rear compartment windows.

So the Maxi suffered from being too much one man’s creation? It make for an interesting tie-in with Paul’s feature on the ’53 flathead Ford. After all, If Henry Ford had listened to his assistants, the flathead would have been a better motor. Sir Alec is one of the more interesting figures in the history of the British automobile industry, and that’s saying something.

“Close enough for government work” I hear a lot in America as well. Who coined it first? Sounds like something out of WW2.

I suspect the loss in volume efficiency is due to crash-protection structure & equipment. At least, I hope it is, or else car design has taken a backward step. I miss the airy greenhouse typical of ’80s designs.

Having never experienced these cars, they actually seem pretty cool. I’m a sucker for five-door hatches, and well-packaged cars which don’t rely on additional height to deliver the goods. Plus it’s got that Hydragas suspension, which is always fascinating to me. I understand it’s a rather rustic, shoddily built car but in theory, it seems very cool, as does the Austin Allegro which succeeded it. Poor BMC.

As I recall, the Maxi is not actually a cut down Landcrab, as it is narrower among other things, and is rather its own animal which shared door stampings and openings with that car to save costs.

It’s never been cool.if you want a cool British hatchback try a Ford Capri.The Allegro was sold at the same time as the Maxi and was a smaller car but even more horrible.Don’t say you’ve not been warned!

Cool may not be the right word, as it implies some degree of social/commercial success. But “interesting” applies to these apparently-awful cars. Better assembly quality and a different gearbox would’ve solved the majority of issues, based on what I’ve read.

A close look reveals the sills and lower doors are constructed from bondofil a typical situation with Issigonis FWD designed cars poor design allows water in but not out resulting in rust through, never mind the mechanical faults they were not good cars, an uncle bought one new against his elder brother’s(a veteran of the motor trade) advice, ironically he mentioned his mistake at my fathers funeral some 35 plus years later regretting not taking his advice, hes a minister of religion my uncle he did the eulogy, that awful Maxi is still on his mind.

The first Maxi was literally a Landcrab cut down the middle and then cut down in width and joined up again. BMC’s big cheeses were adamant that the Landcrab’s doors would be used, so the wheelbase and glass house profile were effectively set

The tail was shortened as BMC were after a smaller car to replace the Farina saloons, and the hatchback was arrived at accident, as the only other practical boot opening was a drop down lid, Mini style.

Once it was shorter and a bit narrower than the Landcrab, some ADO16 components fitted, but the A series engine was limited to 1275cc max BMC, under Issigonis had prepared the E series with siamesed bores to replace the A series, starting at around 1300cc/4cyl and 2000cc/6cyl. The 4cyl was stretched to 1500cc for the first Maxi and then to 1750cc, and the 6cyl version of 1500cc then came in at 2200cc, for the top of the range Landcrab and Princess only. The 5 speed box was a necessity, not deliberate modernity

The Maxi was developed the long way BMC Australia enlarged the ADO16 Morris 1100 into a wagon called the Morris Nomad they also developed a 5speed trans for it and the O series engine this was taken back to the UK and tortured yet aqain to fit the 1800s door frames, the engine got enlarged from the original 1500cc out to some 1750 and the results you see above, There are many smaller BMC cars still alive in NZ but Maxis are a rarity they burned oil from new and as a result people just drove them rapidly into the ground.
Issigonis designed only one really good car the Morris Minor all his FWD efforts were fraught with designed in problems he should have been shot around 1955.

Ah, the Maxi, the most styleless car of all time. Probably – it’s difficult to say for sure as the judges fall asleep whenever a Maxi’s wheeled into the room. With my Dad being a mechanic at the local BL dealer, I tried to like their products, and remember sitting on the steps outside the local library in the early 1980s studying a bright red Maxi and trying to understand it stylistically. I failed, dismally. Issigonis’ contempt for styling was contempt for consumers’ eyesight and aesthetic appreciations, and consigned a technically interesting car to, well, nothingness.

Issigonis may have been autistic so we should be careful here to be ‘pc’ ..possibly he considered the Maxi to be a beautifully crafted thing comparing favourably with a contemporary Ferrari …but i will say i am not surprised that his application to join the design team at Aston Martin was curtly turned down ..they were not impressed with Issigonsis’s design portfolio of doodled-on ‘used table napkins’

Add crash protection to the Maxi and you would probably end up the size of the Astra or larger. The Maxi doors are just thick enough to contain window winders, intrusion beams had not been thought of then, and there is precious little in the way of front crumple space. In terms of success or how it was received, if they had come out with the Maxi 4-5 years earlier than they did it would have made an impact.

Well, they first used the doors in 1964, 5 years earlier…
That’s a good 70% of the side styling sorted. The front is a wider version of the Mini Clubman (1968, loosely based on the 1966 Cortina). The only really original styling detail is the rear lights.

I’ve never agreed with the scorn heaped on these cars, at least in the style department.

While the front and rear end details are cheaply and crudely done (the original 1800’s were much more successful), the basic intelligence of the concept is clearly readable in the overall appearance – which to me has always made them attractive in a ‘form follows function’ way.

It was a great idea on paper but looked dull and boring translated to metal.Compared to other British cars of around the same size(Ford Cortina,Vauxhall Victor & Hillman Hunter) it was bland.The opposition came in bright colours with some very quick versions,the Maxi was available in drab hearing aid beige,pea soup green and maroon being the colours I remember most.
Add shoddy build quality,lack of development and poor reliability,issues never fully sorted despite a long production run and the result is a failure.

I have a wonderfully British book titled “British Leyland: The Truth About the Cars” by Jeff Daniels (Osprey, 1980). It’s telling that in a book where the Allegro chapter is titled “The Vital Stumble” , and the Landcrab is labeled “Misjudgement”, the author chose “DIsaster” to sum up the Maxi.

You could easily make the case that BL was the most “Big 3” non-US carmaker – too many brands, too much badge engineering, replacement models that didn’t really replace, and odd hangers-on. There’s not much difference in BL selling the very dated Morris Oxford Farina sedan/wagon deep into the 60s and the strange persistence of the Cutlass Cierra/Buick Century long after their GM-10 replacements bowed.